The concept of retiring is a strange one. Many people work their entire lives and are ready to stop working. However, there’s always a question about: What happens next? Over the weekend, I read two articles on retirement that I thought were pretty interesting. The first one from USA Today dealt with keeping busy in[...]
A common estate planning goal is to reduce taxes and thereby pass more money along to the beneficiaries of the estate. A recent article discusses several different estate planning devices that may help you to save taxes on your estate. The article first discusses how family business owners can reduce estate taxes. If you have[...]
Estate planning is often the last thing on the minds of young adults. As a recent article explains, however, incapacity planning is a facet of estate planning that is absolute necessity for everyone, and especially beneficial to young adults. Incapacity planning is one of the first parts of estate planning that young adults should complete.[...]
I had occasion to find this post I wrote in 2005 in remembrance of a teacher I had at Tufts University. I needed to reference the post for something I'm writing for Small Firm Innovation, so I decided to re-post here on my blog. I hope you enjoy reading it. A Good Story and a[...]
While the process of dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, there are certain estate planning steps that people can take to ease the process of estate administration for their heirs. A recent article discusses some of these steps. The first step is to create a file and label it, "My[...]
The New York Times is chock-full of good material this weekend. Here is an article showing what happens when parents don’t discuss their financial affairs with their kids. Much of the article focuses on problems after death (although there is one section that follows a child dealing with their parent’s Alzheimer’s condition. The point is[...]
Growing up one of my favorite movies was WarGames with Matthew Broderick. One of the scenes in the beginning of the movie is where his character hacks into the school's computer to change his grade (so he doesn't have to go to summer school). He looks up the password by checking a paper in the[...]
As this recent article explains, one of the most critical parts of any estate plan is a life insurance policy. Having a life insurance policy increases the size of the estate that a person is able to leave to his or her heirs. The cash from a life insurance policy can also aid your heirs[...]
Recently I've begun to serve as a resource to Karin Price Mueller, who writes the New Jersey state-wide column, Ask the Biz Brain. When appropriate, Karin reaches out to me to help answer estate planning, gift tax, elder law, and estate administration questions. These are fun to answer and recently two were published in the[...]
One of the documents that helps to make up a proper estate plan is the power of attorney (“POA”). A POA is a document that authorizes a representative of your choosing to act on your behalf in private and business affairs. Although most people select one person to serve as their POA, this recent article[...]